Research Grants Program 2023

Eligibility

The WCB-Alberta Research Committee is particularly interested in receiving proposals that focus on:

• The assessment and treatment of work-related psychological injuries.
• Outcomes of medical and other interventions.
• Treatment or service outcomes for individuals from traditionally underrepresented or marginalized groups. (*NEW)

Other topics falling within these general areas of research are being considered:

• Disability management and rehabilitation—Reducing the impact of workplace injury and disease.
• Return to work—Reducing barriers to employability; integrating best practices to promote safe, effective, appropriate and sustainable return to work or re-employment.
• Medical/rehabilitative interventions—Evaluating the efficacy of medical or rehabilitative interventions with a focus on treating occupational disease or injury.
• Changing nature of work and the work environment—Examining current technological, economic, demographic or social factors affecting the nature of work; exploring implications for Alberta’s worker’s compensation system.
• Improving the predictability of WCB financing—Including costs and funding, through a better understanding of their relationship with economic and demographic changes.
• Policy, system-design and decision-making—In workers’ compensation, examining systemic fairness and efficacy in terms of benefit structure, financing of workers’ compensation and incentive plans, decision-making models and review/appeal structures.
• Knowledge transfer—Evaluating effective ways of putting research findings into practice for communities of interest.

The project team members could include but are not limited to the fields of clinical medicine, epidemiology, population health, rehabilitation, basic sciences, law, economics and other social sciences.

Summary

WCB-Alberta’s Research Program collaborates with the local research community to find solutions for workers’ compensation issues, develop research in the areas of work-related injuries and illnesses, and improve the administration of injury compensation systems. The program enhances the relationship between the WCB and the scientific, academic and medical research communities. The Research Program provides support to high-quality scientific and scholarly research projects that address the most pressing issues facing the workers’ compensation system.

Overhead: N/A

Submission Process

There are two stages of the competition, a Letter of Intent and the full application.

1. Letter of Intent (LOI)

Letter of Intent (LOIs), plus approval in the Research Management System (RMS) via a Pre-Award/Letter of Intent record, must be submitted to RSO by March 28, 2023 at 12:00 pm. Please be sure to select 'Submitted for approval' (under Save & Progress) in RMS in good time to allow for approvals from your Department Head and/or ADR prior to the RSO internal deadline. Consult your department and faculty for more information on their approval processes and timelines. 

A Research Funding Application Approvals (RFAA) form is not required as approvals are collected electronically in RMS.

Do not submit to the agency until RSO's approval has been granted in RMS. This application also requires a signed signature page from the RSO prior to submission (the completed document will be available for download in RMS). 

Once the institutional signature has been obtained, the Principle Investigator will receive an automated message from RMS to their @ucalgary email address. You can then proceed with submitting your application. The application deadline is March 31, 2023, 11:59 pm (MST). You must submit a WCB-Alberta letter of intent application form, available on the Research Program website, and any required attachments via email to research@wcb.ab.ca.

2. Full Application (by invitation only)

Please follow the instructions WCB-Alberta provides at the time of invitation.

If invited, the full application, plus approval in the Research Management System (RMS) via a Pre-Award/Application record, must be submitted to RSO by May 30, 2023 at noon. 

Please be sure to select 'Submitted for approval' (under Save & Progress) in RMS in good time to allow for approvals from your Department Head and/or ADR prior to the RSO internal deadline. Consult your department and faculty for more information on their approval processes and timelines. 

A Research Funding Application Approvals (RFAA) form is not required as approvals are collected electronically in RMS.

Do not submit to the agency until RSO's approval has been granted in RMS. This application also requires a signed signature page from the RSO prior to submission (the completed document will be available for download in RMS). 

Once the institutional signature has been obtained, the Principle Investigator will receive an automated message from RMS to their @ucalgary email address. You can then proceed with submitting your application to WCB-Alberta's by June 2, 2023.

Resources

• WCB-Alberta LOI Application Form
• 2023 Research Grants Program Guide
• WCB-Alberta contact: Research Program Coordinator, research@wcb.ab.ca

Pre-application deadlines

RSO internal deadline

Pre-application program deadline

Application deadlines

RSO final internal review deadline

Program application deadline

NOTE: Consult your Faculty Associate Dean (Research) (ADR) regarding Faculty-specific deadlines and submission processes.

Principal Investigators: Complete a Research Management System (RMS) record, including a copy of your complete application, and submit this for approvals in RMS.

Postdocs, students, and trainees: For fellowships and externally-sponsored research training awards or opportunities, you must complete the Research Funding Application Approval (RFAA) Trainee PDF form, and submit it, along with a complete copy of the application, to Research Services at postdoc@ucalgary.ca. Trainees should not use RMS at this time.

Approvals: The University of Calgary requires that all funding applications be approved prior to submission. Approval requires signatures via either RMS or the RFAA Trainee form, in the following order:

• Principal Investigator
• Department Head
• Faculty ADR/Dean
• Research Services (on behalf of the Vice-President Research)

Read the Meaning of Grant Signatures policy to understand what your approval means. Please see the agency guidelines for details about which signatures are required on your application, as it may differ from internal requirements.

Late submissions: Late submissions will only be accepted in cases of medical or family emergencies, or other exceptional circumstances. If you submit your RMS record to Research Services after the internal deadline has passed, you must secure additional approvals. Please read: Late Applications Process.

Ethics Requirement

Unless WCB-Alberta has specifically dispensed with the ethical approval requirement, they will not approve a proposal unless appropriate ethical approval is obtained from the university host institution. Common exceptions to this requirement include systematic literature reviews or environmental literature scans. It is the principal investigator’s responsibility to ensure an appropriate ethical review is received and that a copy of the approval is forwarded to WCB-Alberta prior to the start of their project. Research teams should obtain the required ethics approval or ensure the process is underway before submitting their proposals for review. The WCB-Alberta Research Committee may accept a project pending ethics approval; however, all approvals must be completed before any funds are released.